Trane Awarded New Department of Energy Contract

It’s been said that if you can earn the trust of the United States Government — arguably the biggest, most demanding, most risk-averse facilities manager in the world — you must be doing something right.

If that’s true, then Trane has been doing more than a few things right for at least a couple of decades now. How do we know? Because, for the fourth time in a row, Trane has been awarded a US Department of Energy (DoE) indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, known as an IDIQ.

That means that the Trane name will appear on a very short list of trusted providers that the DoE allows to bid on large energy savings performance contracts — so-called ESPCs — that Federal facilities use to execute large energy reduction, resiliency, and decarbonization projects. The DoE has given four rounds of such awards over the last 25 years, which is why this most recent is being called a 4^th Generation or “Gen4” award. 

Trane has executed several ESPC projects at Federal Facilities over the past several years, resulting in a total energy savings of $349,600,941, total fuel savings of 15,062,285 MBTU, total water savings of 1,472,309 kGals of water, and an average consumer baseline energy consumption reduction of 32.2%. Under the new IDIQ, Trane will be permitted to bid on up to $5 billion worth of ESPC projects over the next ten years.

ESPCs can cover a range of improvements for both new and existing federal buildings. Projects can encompass anything from energy and water efficiency to electrification, on-site clean energy generation and sustainable design. ESPC funding can be spent on equipment, technical assistance, or other services related to project planning, development, or implementation.

One of the biggest advantages of ESPCs is that they are designed to pay for themselves over time with the savings they generate. That allows the customer to pursue their sustainability goals without compromising the financial and people resources they need to keep their core operations going strong.

ESPC contracts are sponsored through a program called Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies, or AFFECT. This program was recently expanded under the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which provides grants to federal government-owned facilities seeking to undertake new energy efficiency projects.

Over the last 25 years, more than 30 federal agencies have utilized DoE IDIQ’s to help fund projects in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., U.S. territories, and international locations including Spain, the Republic of Korea, and Japan.